The ‘Wonders of Creation’: A Study of the Ilkhanid ‘London Qazwini’

This is a beautifully illustrated study of Al Qazwini’s ‘Wonders of Creation’ and the first ever translations of the text into English. ‘Wonders of Creation’ is one of a handful of extant illustrated codices produced under the Mongols of Persia. Al Qazwini collected, edited and assembled a large body of literary works into a single text that reflects the cultural world of a medieval Arab encyclopaedist. In this lavishly illustrated volume, Stefan Carboni analyses the manuscript’s miniatures, discusses the 368 paintings that illustrate the codex, and includes a partial critical translation of the related Arabic text. The codex contains a copy of acosmographical text written in Arabic in Baghdad towards the end of the 13th century. The cosmography represents a physical description of the world arranged from the outer spheres of the universe, where the throne of God, the Angels and the Planets are located, down to Earth where the Peoples living in the Islands of the Oceans, the Mineral, the Vegetal and the Animal Kingdoms are described throughout the text. It offers a stylistic analysis and discussion of the manuscript’s miniatures.It includes the first ever translations of sections of the ‘Wonders of Creation’ into English. It is beautifully illustrated with over 400 colour images.